One of the unwritten rules is that once you've come out of lurking, there's no going back, so here you go!

Sally's post.

Thanks for that Liatris. Can you only supply links with Follow Up posts? Whew talk about pressure.
Sally

Sally, the option to post a link only appears on the preview page, but you can make your own by typing in the following:

<a href="Cut and paste the web address of the page you want to link to here">Name your link here</a>

Just moving this up because I still don't know what to do with these seeds.

Thanks
Sally

Not quite sure what you want to know about the seeds, but assume you want to grow them. My books say they germinate in about 14 days at 13 degrees, may take a while to flower. It recommends spring sowing, but it's a northern hemisphere text. Varieties don't come true. Divide your plants or take basal cuttings if you want more of the same variety.

Thanks Snodge. My original question was about the fact that the Yates Garden Guide says they need to germinate in the dark. I was asking if I need to put them in a paper bag, or under the house ???? Also how often would I water them? Probably really dumb questions but I don't have a clue what I am doing.

Sally

I've found that when they say needs darkness to germinate, it just means that the seeds have to be covered with soil. Some seeds need light, so are surface sown - hope this helps.

I think Pebbles1 is right. My text doesn't say anything about depth of planting, which generally means plant them with a light covering of soil.
It does say old seed germinates erratically though, so I'd suggest using the freshest seed possible.

Thanks Pebbles and Snodge. Obviously I was making it a lot more complicated than it needed to be. I found an interesting site today that said to put them in the fridge for a week before sowing. I can't get te link to work but the address was www.delphiniums.co.nz. Sorry Liatris but I'm a true Luddite :-)
Sally

I had someone on here send me some delphinium seeds.. i too read the yates gardening guide (having no idea about them) and scratched my head at the "needs dark to germinate" bit.. so i potted some up in potting mix and put them under the house, forgot about them and then about a month later i noticed ONE of the 5 containers of seed had turned into seedlings. unfortunately when i then moved it from under the house and started paying them more attention they died on me...

Unless otherwise stated, the general rule of thumb for planting depth of seeds is the depth of their size, so a 3mm seed, for instance, would have a 3mm covering.

There are a lot of variables, though.

Pam